Mephisto Waltz – always a struggle.
I struggle with my current reluctance to shake Death’s scythe and with the drunken genius of Shalyapin.
Gustav Holst struggles with electronics by Daniel Williams.
The audience struggles with the eternal “Planets” and today’s DEREVO.

We perform in the territory of the question:
“Is this Theatre?”
“What is this?”

In the past, less time was needed to take the audience into the zone of paid lunacy.
Interesting.

My solo work “Shell” has finally happened!
I want more!

And now, with the original cast, “La Divina Commedia” in Dresden!!
Tanya, Lena, Oleg, Alexey and me.
As the saying goes – HURRY! NOT TO BE MISSED!

The Scarecrow stood on the edge of the field. Replacement for his rusty tin-cans was well overdue.

The Wind stole his hat and his coat was ragged.

But joy was always coming in December .

Village children used to make a Snowman right next to the Scarecrow. Right like Snowmen should be: with a tin bucket on his head and a carrot as his nose. The sleeve of the Scarecrow’s coat was then tied to the Snowman’s twig paw and with a happy squeals children were aiming their snowballs at the pair of figures. Maybe children wanted to separate them again.

The Scarecrow was smiling though. Yes, truly. He was smiling.

And then April came on tiptoes and took the Snowman away. Just a twig remained tied to the Scarecrow’s sleeve.

But it’s alright. December will come again. Not quite soon but it will. I can wait.

I can wait.

Hello everybody!

In just one week DEREVO starts the new series of shows, where?
Yes, of course in Edinburgh. For the eighth time.

Probably there’s no need anymore. We’ve got all the main prizes. Everyone knows us here, except maybe the first wife of the Mayor, ‘cos she lives on Malta.

But the year without the Fringe seems to be incomplete. The Fringe is a running track in time. Backwards. Back to the honest days.

The show’s temper can be hardened by this. Harden, let down, bend and forge again, cling-clang… in our aprons, merrily…

Yes, there’s a risk that the „horseshoe“ of the show breaks. It may happen. That’s why it’s the Fringe.

MEPHISTO WALTZ becomes a joyous performance. I still couldn’t write a proper description text for it. I tried. I know I can do it. But it just doesn’t need any texts.

Some quite exciting updates can be found in our tour-plan. Sokurov’s Faust premiere at the Venice Film Festival, an appearance of DEREVO in the russian city of Perm with both a performance and a workshop, Anton’s appearances along with AVIA band in St Petersburg, then MEPHISTO WALTZ in Moscow and in Sochi. The first options for 2012 are published too.

On 8th of September 2011, Anton Adasinsky and Elena Yarovaya will attend the premiere of the Alexander Sokurov’s Faust at the 68th Venice Film Festival. In the film by the Russian film master Anton plays the Usurer or Moneylender as an incarnation of Mephistopheles. Incredible team has been working on the film, including fellow actors Johannes Zeiler, playing Faust, Isolda Dychauk as Margaret and Hanna Schygulla as the Usurer’s wife. With the stunning cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel (”Amélie”, “A Very Long Engagement”, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”) this film is one of ten favourites from the very strong line-up in the run for the Golden Lion.

After this DEREVO travels to Perm, MEPHISTO WALTZ was invited to the “Texture” Festival and then Anton Adasinsky does a three days of workshop.

In St Petersburg Anton performs with the AVIA band then two more MEPHISTO WALTZ performances in Russia come up in Moscow and in Sochi where growing numbers of the world class cultural events should help the city to perfectly slip into its role of the host city for the winter Olympics in 2014.

22 years ago this Island made a new hardly noticeable companion to world re-knowned DEREVO theatre company.

Right there in the dunes, under the sky, on the endless sands, in the roaring wind and surf, there the unique principles of DEREVO’s dance have been elaborated. And they mean the mastering of huge spaces, laconic moves, purity of senses, precision in colours of the costumes and props, live music of nature…

The forced immobility and the total ban even for my daily excercises (to keep the character’s spirit intact) were exhausting.

Now this is a kind of dance version of the film coming up as «revenge».

Though it’s quite unclear where the scarecrow comes from. But nobody’s bewildered by that at DEREVO.

Harlekin’s life is jolly and wondrous!

We were in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, St. Petersburg. Now we’re travelling to Serbia, then Budapest, then to…. And yes, the book about Me-Harlekin is available now. You can see it here:

It’s like a libretto or a manual.

And last but not least: my notion entitled „Motorway – the moles’ tomb“ has been approved for consideration by the Greens. By boring six cm wide holes at two meter intervals on all roads passing a wood moles can reach the surface freely. Too many of them get stuck under the asphalt only to find death!

After the workshop at Stanford one of the students offered to bring me to the hotel in San Francisco.

It’s about 40 minutes travel. In the car he asked me if I’ve seen the Redwood. Not if I’ve been there but if I’ve seen it. I said that I’m too tired. He suddenly flushed red and said that I’ve just got to go there. So he turned off the highway. Quite unexpectedly stubborn for an American…

I rarely visit any woods. I’m always sad there and it is somehow cramped. But the Redwood, it’s something entirely different. They are also known as Mammoth trees. We were walking somewhere rather fast and he spoke something looking at his feet. He said nothing new, nothing new could I hear but something unusual was going on.

All his thoughts about technology development, about the destiny of the Father of Internet seemed to me rather flat for a Stanford student.

He tried to pull me into discussion. I suspected an attempt to show off a little bit.

“Everyone I know in Stanford wants to change the world.” I answered that I really want to keep the world as it is, so we’re on different paths. We laughed.

He brought me to a cut of a tree trunk and I couldn’t believe my eyes: the tree must have been around 2500 years old! And some of the annual rings were marked and signed.

The student went on talking and I was reading… 1347, Europe’s Black Death… “We’ve got a club, called The Cell. There are really selected brains. We try to analyze the moment when inventions or discoveries or rather presentiments of an invention can be captured by other people. Or even more precisely when some kind of an invention’s carrier frequency emerges and is available for scanning, since at that very moment… how should I explain it…” – 1492, Columbus arrives to the New World – “ … it’s not a stealing, it’s much more complex… best of the best are working here” – hmm, if it’s allowed to smoke a cigarette here in the woods… – “…we’re moving the world here. And another moment which is particularly exciting is when an invention becomes destructive and may come into unfriendly hands…” – Declaration of Independence is signed, 1776 – “another project I’m working on at The Cell is a software development, the software invoking an enmity to other software in one’s mind… a sort of shady copy of the original software but actually quite sophisticated… ” – Gold Rush, 1848 – “one of the tasks is an integration of elements which irritate a human biosystem via PC and arouse a consequent rejection, an inability to perceive information without additional effort…”

At the hotel’s doors he said to me that he’s always talking that much in the Wood because he hears the voices of the Redwood if he’s silent.

“And what do the voices say?”
“Pretty much the same but quite understandable and clear, and just like it happened yesterday. It’s dangerous. Thank you once again for your Harlequin. Have a good night.”

The Black Dance from the previous news is the first outline of the new DEREVO project MEPHISTO WALTZ. Scenic design by Maxim Isaev (AKHE). In May Lena, Tanya, Alisa and Anton presented this work at the Meta Theatre of Mikhail Chemiakin in France.

The main character of the performance was born there – The Scarecrow (you will not see him on any photo).

MEPHISTO WALTZ will be the new performance by DEREVO. First previews are available to the public during the open rehearsal in the Festspielhaus Hellerau in Dresden and the appearance in the Mihail Chemiakin’s Meta-Theatre at his house in France.